So I've got a bit of catching up to do both with replying to your messages and posting some of my own, below you find a number of links to Picasa albums, I'm trying to produce some images (no matter how ropey) each day.

2009-01-30 - Picasa Link - 11 Images1 Image of a church we’re extending and a bunch of images showing the roof structure of another church (yes that one)

2009-02-02 - Picasa Link - 4 ImagesA building we’re converting to a nursing home, this is the existing building, I’m in the process of building the proposed interior.

2009-02-03 - Picasa Link - 6 ImagesOld school building in Dublin we’re converting to multi-use (class rooms, offices, bedrooms etc). This model will eventually be finished down to the plug sockets and light switches.

2009-02-13 - Picasa Link - 19 imagesTCA. Back to the stairs, not quite there yet.

2009-02-16 - Picasa Link - 39 imagesTCA. Lots of small stuff today, so no real progress to show, so I thought I’d post a bunch of images of the whole model. Those of you that remember the model will notice that I’ve now got the whole interior done, no more massive opening in the model where the front door should be.This is also the proposed design, you will only have seen the model of the church as is before.

2009-02-17 - Picasa Link - 14 imagesTCA. The stair AGAIN! This time its finished (well sort of) The stair lift is most definitely going, I think we’re going to propose a catapult instead.

Below is a link to a 280Mb QTVR of the interior of the church, there are around 50 clickable hotspots within the file, wherever you see a red figure you can click and jump to that POV, also there are ones high up that look like round arrowy things.

Forgive the initial hotspot, its not quite finished yet. I'm planning to add a load of hotsopts of the outside (planning anyway)

You'll be downloading this from my Dropbox so I have no idea how fast it'll download or how many can download it before Dropbox has a hissy fit.

I would recommend that you right-click and 'Save link as' otherwise you browser will almost definitely try and open the file in a new window.

2009-02-18 - Picasa Link - 7 imagesA lot of work but not much to show today, I'm in the process of building and locating all the radiators, sockets, light switches, furniture etc. This is not what we'd normally do but its necessary on this particular job.

2009-02-19 - Picasa Link - 34 imagesLots done today but not much to show for it so here's an project I did a while ago.

2009-03-04 - Picasa Link - 61 imagesSlow day today so did some mucking about with styles, here are 9 views done in 6 different styles.I was especially impressed with the last style so did some closeups.

Just starting this one, the boss appeared at about 2pm and said 'build this' whilst handing me a piece of paper with about 6 lines on it. Its only an initial concept to show the client as to what could be possible on the site.

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

What I got was a rectangle (4 lines) 2 'stickyout' bits (another 4 lines) and whilst he was putting his coat on to go to a meeting I got "Make it 19mx36m, chop the corners off, make the roof 22.5 degrees, a 1.8m center isle and 1.2m side isles" and then as he was passing through the door "stuff some column/frames in, I'll look at it in the morning" SLAM!

Alll in all a rather typical day....

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

Here's an update on the church.Work on site started recently with the builders doing a bit of remodelling with a couple of mini excavators, here's a shot taken before they got going:

.....and here's one taken on Friday.....

A bit of a difference don't you think?, here's a couple more from Friday:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Whilst the builders were busy gutting the place they made a bit of a discovery. We always knew that under the raised area of the altar there was a tiled floor, we assumed that it was in poor condition, it having being covered up, but were we in for a surprise.

Before:

....And after the raised area was removed this is what we found!!

....Not bad eh? A bit of a wipe with a wet rag and hey presto...

....After a bit of work in PS 'de'distorting the photos I knocked these out as textures:

....And here's the results in SU:

We're about to start working up some concepts that retain the floor whilst still raising the altar/lectern/priest's up about 450mm. I personally think we should suspend the lot on trapeze wires from the ceiling but I think the Monsignor may baulk at the idea of flying over his parishioners!

Here's the first bash at a revised altar area. Apart from some cursory glances no one here's really seen it yet so your the first! I doubt this concept will survive much scrutiny so expect a second version soon.

This is a massively cut-down version of the model with only the bare essentials to enable us to come up with a new altar area.

The floor between the altar and pews is still the old design hence the large gaps, The altar area is no more than a massing model, hence the sharp edged steps.

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

I'd forgotten that I'd been having a go with Twilight Render using the church as a tester before the revised design reared its head.

Here's some images I knocked out using Twilight, since I'd abandoned rendering when I abandoned 3D Studio Max in 2004 I had to relearn some things but I've go to say TW is good and fantastically easy to use. My only problem in getting better out of my models is me at the moment.

I was trying to get a highly reflective marble with this one and accidentally ended up with a polished steel floor, not what I intended but that's why their called test renders.

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

Bob,I had thought of it but as I'm 'just' the 3D guy and 'not' an architect my opinion doesn't carry much weight around here when it comes to design ideas.But...... I do plan on putting my ideas on the table.

1. Replace the existing full depth floor with glass and lighting it from below but then I thought about how you would clean the covered area or replace the lights.

2. Have the risers of the steps in glass block with lights behind and either marble or timber as the goings/level areas, again maintenance would be a problem.

3. Marble risers with a new mosaic design for the goings/level areas, could be too fussy.

We'll see, its early days for this one but time's a ticking as a design will have to be resolved soon.

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

The model is about 50-60mb at the moment, it was smaller but I went through it recently and 'upped' the detail on some of the parts that were bugging me, the round tops to the column bases, the roses at the end of the beading around the arches etc.I've probably overdone the textures on the new floors as they make the altar walls look a bit blurry in comparison. I'm tempted to remake the textures as higher res but that's just the sadomasochist in me talking

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Paul RussamEnglish doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark allies, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.